As the coordinator of the Domestic Abuse Program at OHEL for the past 10 years, I have seen many very special women come forward with their painful stories. I am proud to say that our program has made a significant difference in the lives of these courageous women.

From Ecclesiastes we learn the expression "there is nothing new under the sun" and when you read history you see how true this is. From cults to politics it seems as if nothing is really ever new. That also includes technology. While a certain invention or discovery can be classified as new, we often find it in nature much earlier. Arctic fish used anti-freeze in their bloodstreams long before people put it in their cars. There are airplanes, but birds flew much earlier; there are satellites, but the moon was there earlier. Whales are better than submarines and as for nuclear fusion; the sun and stars had that worked out long before we did.

Dear Gary,
I have begun dating someone who I like very much. However, there is one issue that has raised a red flag. He talks about his mother a lot - in a good way. They have a very close relationship. However, some of my girlfriends (one who is married and does not get along with her mother-in-law) told me to beware of marrying a "Momma's boy" because then you're marrying his mother. Is this a real concern when dating?
Concerned

Dear Rabbi Horowitz:
We were taken aback when our 18-year-old son just called us from Eretz Yisrael (we live in Europe) and told us that he was coming home and wants to immediately go to work. He said that he is wasting his time in yeshiva, and just can't take it anymore. He said that he will "run away from home" if we don't allow him to go to work.

Zelda woke up with a start, the silence eerie and disorienting. She has been waking up this way for almost a year - since shortly after Ruchy and her husband left for Eretz Yisroel. "I can go back to sleep," thought Zelda. But she lay in bed, straining to hear the sounds which for so many years began her day. The banging of bathroom doors, the shouting for lost and then found shoes, tights and seforim, the noise of phones and doorbells ringing, the house filled to the brim with comings and goings.

For both parents and teenagers alike, adolescence can be a very hard time. Unfortunately, when family life gets rough, communication tends to break down. And when it does, parents need to restore their ability to relate to their teenagers by learning about the rules of communication.

In a bustling fifth grade class Moshe is listening to a tape-recorded reading of President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, while Shmuel is writing a poem about a fight between brothers. Next to Moshe and Shmuel, Yerucham is reading an account of a former African-American slave.

Many parents admit they yell too much, but do not know how to avoid exploding when irritated. It takes effort and discipline to defeat any addiction, whether it's overeating or cigarette smoking and the screaming addiction is no different. Thankfully, when we really want to grow spiritually, we are given Heavenly guidance.

At a wedding, I sit across from a woman I don't know.
"What's your name?" she asks me.
"Alanna Fine," I say, choosing to introduce myself with my maiden name.
"And what's your maiden name?" she asks me.
"That is my maiden name."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that was a sheitel on your head."
"It is. I'm divorced."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's ok," I reply, knowing it won't be the last time I hear that.

Recently, I asked a family friend, a financial advisor, to share with me his perspective on the importance of rapport in the world of sales. In a general way, I knew that successful salespeople maintain good rapport with their clients. And so I was curious. Was the need for developing rapport in business any different than doing so in a parent-child relationship? To that end, I posed the following questions: "How do you establish rapport with a new client? And what do you believe is a key issue to creating rapport?